Many animals experience curiosity, humans included. In fact, this trait is especially important to humans. Without curiosity, our species would probably never have started using fire. Then where would we be? On a much smaller scale, curiosity also drives individuals. We want to find answers. We want to understand new concepts. We crave new experiences. It can be curiosity about personal sexuality, the nature of the world at large, or anything in between. Whatever it is, we are all curious about something.

Curiosity is an important theme for the characters in Heaven’s Delusion. Without further ado, let’s satisfy some of our own curiosity by exploring the events of Heaven’s Delusion episodes 4 through 6.

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Episode 4: Kuku

Kiruko and Maru defeat the maneater inside the ship. Afterward, they leave the ship and go explore a new area, looking for clues about the bird logo on Kiruko’s gun. Other than that, the majority of the episode took place in “Heaven,” where Tokio is more curious than ever. Although robots run the daily functioning of this enclosed school, there are also a few adults who are in charge of the surveillance cameras. There’s also a medical team of adults to care for sick children.

A young girl named Kuku promised to show Tokio a place where there were real babies. Kuku has special physical abilities and is able to scale the giant wall and get into a secret vent with ease. Tokio has no such supernatural ability, so it takes her longer to catch up. After going through the vent passages for some time, the two girls jump down into a room where there are some kind of white incubators. Within those “cribs” are “babies,” except that they look nothing like human babies. They are bizarre, ugly creatures with pure white skin and no faces.

Tokio stares at the “babies” intently, until an alarm goes off, warning the adults that someone has intruded where they shouldn’t be. Kuku quickly helps Tokio back into the vents and they escape, but not without leaving a footprint behind. The “baby” that Tokio had been staring at is heard saying, “Tokio,” so apparently it can speak. The adults were unable to find out where the intruder was, so the girls are safe for now.

This episode also showed several of the children beginning to exhibit normal signs of romantic and sexual interest in each other. After her friend Tarao tries to kiss her, Tokio runs away, upset. Kona finds her and explains that this normal and nothing to be afraid of. Tokio then expresses that she wants to someday be with Kona, and he returns the feelings. But Tokio’s happy, lovestruck mood is killed when she gets the news that Tarao’s mysterious illness has worsened. Now, it’s hard for Tarao to breathe right. Still, he struggles to tell Tokio something important: that she needs to run away from this place.

Since so much happened in this episode, I have a lot of different thoughts, and insufficient time to write them all down. Instead of going over all my responses and reactions, I’ll just spend a bit of time speculating about this world. First of all, Tarao’s mysterious illness is the same we’ve seen a few times now in other people. I think the disease is connected to the Great Disaster and the crumbling of modern society. Perhaps it was a widespread illness that killed off most of the population.

After the collapse, I think the old Director kidnapped many children who had psychic or supernatural abilities. As for what she plans to do with those kids now, I have no idea. It’s also possible that this facility existed before the collapse and that the children’s destructive power was what led to the apocalypse. As for those freaky babies, they are probably artificial lifeforms that are somehow connected to the Director’s plans. Although I’m probably way off the mark on all of this, I’m still having fun speculating.

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Episode 5: Day of Fate

Note: Until now, I’ve done my best to write relatively detailed episode recaps that note all the most important parts. But these last few episodes have been so chock-full of new information that I don’t think I can write a recap under six or seven paragraphs. I think that would be way too long for a single episode review. That’s why the following recap for episode 5 will be vague and will necessarily leave out a lot of important details. I’ll still include a few paragraphs of my thoughts and responses afterward.

Kiruko and Maru defend themselves from violent thugs as they explore a new city. Maru tells Kiruko the story of his upbringing and what he can remember from the past. Kiruko experiences growing anxieties about being separated from Maru. A man who was with the teenagers on the ship tracked them down and sold them information about the “Immortal Order.” Apparently, it’s a group of people led by a mysterious doctor who can grant immortality. The man claims that if maneater parts are inserted into a human, the human can live forever. Curious about the doctor, Kiruko and Maru set off to find the Immortal Order.

Meanwhile, things are not going well over in “Heaven.” An adult finds Tokio’s footprint in the baby room and begins searching for a matching shoe among the children. Sadly, Tarao passes away from his illness. The children are devastated and the old Director is also grieving. This is the second death among Heaven’s children; the first one was a boy named Asura who killed himself for unknown reasons. When the adults cremated Tarao’s body, they discovered something strange. There is a weird, dark piece of nonhuman flesh that didn’t burn. To be continued.

It was interesting to learn more about Maru and his past. Now I understand why he’s so good at fighting; he literally grew up in a street gang. I empathized strongly with Kiruko when he had that panic attack. Poor guy. It seems like neither Kiruko nor Maru know the truth about the Great Disaster fifteen years ago. They speculated about different theories, but aren’t sure about any of them. I hope this anime eventually explains it, because I’m dying to know how civilization collapsed. The claim that people can become immortal by taking in maneater parts is intriguing, but we have yet to confirm that it’s true.

As for my thoughts on “Heaven,” we learned a lot of important clues from the Director and the other adults. For instance, someone from the med team said that these children were made to have complete immunity. They shouldn’t be able to get sick, so Tarao’s illness is even more of a mystery than ever. My latest theory about the children and those weird babies is as follows: the babies are maneater larva, and their parts are used to create immortal children with psychic powers. On a final note, the Director said something about “the Day of Fate,” and I’m curious to know about that.

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Episode 6: Safe Water

While trying to acquire safe drinking water, Kiruko and Maru are attacked by a savage creature. They thought it was a meaneater/hiruko, but it was actually a mangy old bear. It takes some great effort and teamwork, but the teenagers eventually kill the bear. Afterward, they stay in a hotel run by an orphan girl. When the girl tries to have sex with Maru, the boy discovers that he is able to use his psychic power on her. He had previously believed it only worked on monsters. The girl seems perfectly human. The next day, Kiruko and Maru leave the hotel behind and continue their journey.

Meanwhile, in “Heaven”, Tokio is suffering from anxiety and nightmares. In one dream, she saw the ghost of the dead boy, Ashura. He didn’t look human, but it’s not clear if that’s how he really looked, or if it was just the warped nature of Tokio’s dream. The adults have now discovered that Tokio’s shoes match the footprint found in the baby room. She’s about to be in big trouble. In the final scene of the episode, we get the reveal that Tokio and Kona have been sleeping together. It’s possible that Tokio is already pregnant.

Although it’s not the worst I’ve seen, this episode disappointed and bothered me with its unnecessary elements of young teenage sexuality. The main thing that bugged me was that the anime showed the orphan girl mostly naked. I did not consent to see a nude teenager, and it was not necessary for the plot. Despite my frustration, however, this isn’t a complete deal-breaker for me. I can overlook this episode for the most part and still enjoy the rest of the interesting sci-fi elements and post-apocalyptic story.

Speaking of the story, the most interesting part of this episode was the discovery that Maru’s power can be used on humans – at least, on some humans. It’s not yet clear if there was something special or nonhuman about the orphan girl. However, I suspect that her body was altered with maneater/hiruko material. This would explain why Maru’s power registered her as a hiruko even though she looked human. That’s just my theory, but I think it’s a pretty good one. In summary, Heavenly Delusion is not a perfect anime, but it continues to fascinate me with its slow world-building and sci-fi mysteries. I’m excited to see more.

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Thank you for reading~